also: basurēadan.) Other words andwurde, andwyrde: 'to answer'. A combination of the prefix and- ('against', akin to Greek anti-) and wurde ('word'). By the end of the 12th century, andwurde had been replaced by andswerian ('answer'), (containing swear, probably Common Germanic, attested at least before 900). Compare with German Antwort, Dutch antwoord. æðele: 'noble'; also æðelu: 'noble descent'; æðeling: 'hero' and ēðel: 'native land', 'home'. Once common words with many compounds, they are only in Modern English as the loanword edelweiss and some proper nouns such as Ethel (the same Germanic root gives the Ad- in Adelaide, Adolph and Albert). The Latin-derived words noble and gentle (in its original English meaning of 'noble') were both borrowed into English around 1230. Compare with German edel, Dutch edel, English athel. ge-: a prefix used extensively in Old English, originally meaning 'with', but later gaining other usages, such as being used grammatically for the perfect tense. In Middle English it became y or i, and it was still common in southern dialects in the 14th century (e.g. Canterbury Tales and Ayenbite of Inwit). In Modern English it survives in handiwork (OE handgeweorc), and in the archaic gemot ('meeting', compare with Witenagemot) and yclept (OE geclypod). It is also found in the rare German loanwords gemütlich and gemütlichkeit. Compare with German ge-, Dutch ge-. gerīm: 'number'. (See worn.) getæl: 'number'. A combination of the prefix ge- and tæl. Besides the phrase "to tell time", it mainly survived in English with meanings related to speech ('tell', 'tale'). Meanings related to numbers can be found in Germanic cognates. Compare with English teller, German Zahl, Dutch getal, Swedish and Danish tal and Norwegian tall. (See worn.) hæmed: 'sex'. liger: 'sex'. mid: 'with'. Mid was used in Old English in nearly all instances where 'with' is used in Modern English. It is attested in early Old English manuscripts. The latest use cited in the OED is 1547, but this late example may be an intentional archaism. By the end of the 14th century, mid had been overtaken by with. If the first part of midwife is a reflex of this preposition (neither OED nor AHD affirm this derivation), it is the only trace of the with meaning in Modern English. The word probably originally derived from an Indo-European root meaning 'middle' and is akin to the English prefix mid- and Latin medium. It is likely to be akin